


i'll be back to love you again

by octoberswimmer



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Relationship Study, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 13:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13858980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoberswimmer/pseuds/octoberswimmer
Summary: Two boys sharing a house, sharing a love, sharing a life.





	i'll be back to love you again

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy this kagehina essay I spontaneously threw together to cure my withdrawal symptoms of writing. I suspect that my listening to "Always Somewhere" by Scorpions many times this week has had an effect on this fic, cue the title.

After school, their brains loaded with the daily required amount of information, Shouyou and Tobio always find each other on the couch in the living room, tired but contented. Sleepy smiles from physically drained Shouyou, his fingers never still, always find a chord in Tobio and the teenager, not quite over his high school mindset, seems to feel obligated to find this annoying. He's not able to fight Shouyou's fingers back into his own personal space, not willing to; and Shouyou's never failed to revel in the freedom of massaging Tobio's inflated mind back to its normal size. Its normal size is quite low compared to the average person, but Shouyou doesn't mind. It's simple for him to fill it up completely when Tobio's mind is small, when it can't multitask so if he's reminded of Shouyou, he's bound to think about Shouyou. If Shouyou can set his own picture as Tobio's phone wallpaper, if he can text Tobio all he wants never to get a reaction worse than "dumbass", if his small size doesn't mean a smaller footprint in someone's world for once, Shouyou isn't allowed to mind.

Evenings are hazed with laziness and effort to find something that's edible when uncooked in their cramped kitchen. The unopened box of the vacuum cleaner is a sad contrast to the clumps of hair and dust on the floor as well as wasted space in their kitchen because a vacuum cleaner doesn't really belong there, but someone needs to vacuum the house at last. That someone will probably be their landlord after they graduate and vacate the house three years into the future, but neither dares to outwardly rely on this fact in fear of finding guilt relief in each other and their house turning into a giant garbage dumpster.

Sometimes they're unsuccessful in their quest to fill their stomachs. On the couch, one lying on top of the other, they're hungry and disgruntled. Sometimes they have no money left to cover them till the next payment. Then they're sitting back to back, discussing the ways to make ends meet, sometimes with words and sometimes with silence. The warmth from one another is what helps them shrug it off so easily when there's no apparent way to do that, when they know they're bad at managing their money but it's all right because they've enjoyed spending every last penny.

Sometimes they'll go to the convenience store Shouyou works at, together, Tobio sitting behind the cash register doing nothing but teasing Shouyou as the other rings up products while trying to talk back to him. Shouyou uses his staff discount to get them snacks, but it's nothing filling especially for himself who spends his day jumping around just as he used to in high school, but this time with an academical purpose. Malnutrition gets to him much quicker than it used to in high school and he's used this as an excuse to graze on Tobio's food too many times, but he always feels bad after. He didn't know he could feel bad for getting on Tobio's nerves, not when he was seventeen. But Shouyou's eighteen now and many things seem to have changed since.

Tobio doesn't have a student job. His family wants him to focus on his studies only and not worry about money. It's a golden opportunity to make fun of the baby boy of his family, spoiled with care. But as the days spent side by side on the couch pile up, his housemate finds less and less joy in that. He prefers to approach the situation like a grown-up instead of that, accepts it so that he's the provider and Tobio's the organiser. Much to his surprise, Tobio's turned out to be quite the coordinator. They still don't clean and hardly use the utilities in their kitchen but the trash is taken out regularly and their beds are made daily at least. Plus, they're never actually left without food. There's much to eat, though sadly only if they cook. With Shouyou a disaster in the kitchen and Tobio never bothered to even go there, the food eventually goes bad but it's there.

Tobio, being the one with the brains, makes Shouyou do the chores almost all the time but it's okay too. Shouyou's muscles need to be trained as much as possible. It's never been a bother for him to get up from his warm spot and go to the supermarket or hang out the laundry. Tobio needs to study unlike him, he understands. He even wishes that Tobio didn't have to make his own bed every morning and that there was only one bed they both slept in which Shouyou made.

That used to be a dream, too, until recently one day, Shouyou just slapped Tobio's ass while he was passing by the couch.

Tobio has gained some weight since the start of university. It was a gradual, yet still abrupt change for him to go from the king athlete in the prefecture to a complete sitter student. In the last year of high school, with the combined effort of his parents and grandparents, he put the brakes on excessive training and picked a goal to achieve, since it didn't seem possible for him to have a career in athletics unless he learned to make it a part of his life rather than his whole life. Shouyou slowed down his own pace to ease Tobio's yearning, made sure to keep the voleyball out of his sight — and it was easier than expected with Tobio's broad understanding that what he was doing was to his best interests. But he couldn't land in an engineering course like Tobio did. Afterwards, with his eating habits not quick enough to match his change to a sedentary lifestyle, Tobio's got a little soft around the edges.

Some meat on his cheeks and backside is nothing to complain about, but it can't be kept a secret that Shouyou gets distracted by this backside ofter than what's appropriate. A not so lean Tobio is, apart from being a sight to see —"is a star falling, Kageyama-kun? What happened to the boy who turned entire teams into smoke?"—, is less intimidating and more homey. Shouyou doesn't like that he feels compelled to lock on Tobio's different body parts at random times, but what it's come down to with his seeing Tobio as the wife and himself the husband of the couple is fun.

So it's come even further down and he just slapped the other's ass like it's nothing more than flicking dust off of it and it's not an issue.

Except that it _is_ an issue, apparently, because Tobio's body reads horror from his face to the stance of his legs, and Shouyou makes sure that his disapproval is readable on his face too because it's offensive for him to react this much to what's nothing more than a friendly gesture, really. Shouyou's sure Suga-san does it to Daichi-san too, he's never seen it but it's natural to imagine.

"What?" Tobio yells.

"It looked good!" is Shouyou's defense, spoken in a tone one would talk about food in.

So now it's "die rather than tell him I love him" for Shouyou and that's not a fun game at all to play.

In the summer after high school ended, he and Tobio played volleyball in thier free time to fill the void the fact that they'll never be high schoolers again created. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima wouldn't giggle at them being stupid anymore, so they could be as stupid as they pleased. There wouldn't be first years waiting in line to practice with Tobio, second years at the peak of puberty wouldn't scoff at the freak duo. Yamaguchi wouldn't give them a frustrated glance, but in turn they wouldn't call him captain. Their gym at Karasuno was out of bounds and there weren't any girls watching Tsukishima and his companions from afar.

Throwing a volleyball back and forth was a good way to pass time, the only way for two intellectually uninterested and hobby-less kids. They practiced and when they were bored of petty fight, they sat under a tree to tell each other stories from their lives that the other hadn't witnessed yet. Shouyou talked about her sister's newfound girliness and Tobio would generally just listen. At the end of the summer in the university enrollment season, though, Tobio brought the news of his mother's pregnancy and Shouyou was instantly her big brother.

It was a big step from their second year selves to be this comfortable with closeness, which had been a big step from their rival-friend first year selves who had been together only because fate had thrown them together. In this big-step summer, Natsu, then six years old, met Tobio only to immediately be friends with him. Shouyou visited Mama Kageyama, even gave her a gift for her baby. He promised to be there with Tobio for the birth.

Sister Kageyama is due in two weeks and their train tickets are stuck on the fridge with a magnet. Shouyou wanted to arrive there hand in hand with Tobio, but after he ruined his chances in telling Tobio his feelings in a talking-about-weather fashion, it's too big a deal he almost considers not going rather than dragging his loser ass all the way back to Sendai with a negative progress rate.

He's thinking harder than he's ever thought in his life and this reflects on his face. Tobio roams around the house, studies on the dinner table and goes for a glass of water as he just sits on the couch, sour that he's alone, and most likely pouts. His face has been the way it is for the entire evening so it's hard to tell.

Tobio's bag rests against the table's leg, half open with his notebooks peeking out. He's given them to Tobio on his birthday. He's in sudden need of a "thank you" refreshment from Tobio for them. He's moody and it needs to be cured by the person who caused this. He decides that he can interrupt the other's studying for something as important as his feelings.

"Kageyamaaaa," he says, going up a pitch towards the end, "lay that pencil down before your little finger breaks off of and lend an ear to me." When he doesn't get a response other than an annoyed "hmmmmmmmm", he tries again.

"To-bi-o," he syllabicates. "Lis-ten!" Tobio only grunts.

He has to try again later.

It can be resolved in bed, Shouyou concedes and goes over to Tobio's room that night after he's taken to his room to sleep.

"We need to pack an emergency bag." is his introduction.

"We can do it later." Tobio replies, finding it natural enough for Shouyou to be in his room not to comment on it, which is encouraging.

"The emergency may take place tonight." he argues, meaning both a possible earthquake and a possible post-confession heart attack but Tobio probably doesn't know about the second one and the loverboy is used to it by now.

He's so difficult for simple Tobio when he's like his, he knows. But he's difficult for himself too, tonight. It's an emergency.

"Go to sleep, Hinata." Tobio groans, and doesn't say a word when Shouyou drops down to his side in the bed.

 

 

 

 

 

He kissed Tobio good morning so the other's been looking at him with incredulous eyes.

He can't figure out if Tobio can't believe he did it, or can't believe he did it _genuinely_. Shouyou wants hope to get the better of him, but there's no reason for him to believe that Tobio _wants_ it to be genuine so he just eats his corn flakes.

Tobio visits him at his job that afternoon. They mostly sit in silence and it lets Shouyou focus fully on his sense of sight. Tobio is tranquil and looks comfortable, which inexplicably makes Shouyou fidgety as if he wants to reach out to the other and caress his face. It's default for him to want to be tactile with Tobio but it's never been this strong.

He holds Tobio's hand on the way home.

He doesn't let go even when they enter the house. Instead, he lets his hand climb on the arm of the man he's loved for long, to rest on his shoulder. It's a bit more difficult now with Tobio growing at a faster rate than him, making him feel like a child — or maybe it's his need of affection and the pining feeling which make him feel so.

When he looks up, he sees Tobio looking down at him. From Tobio's eyes, warmth like liquid gold flows down to his, pools there and when Tobio blinks like he's just realised what he's doing, with Shouyou's quiet chuckle, it splashes.

His head goes back down, so does his hand. He leaves Tobio there to stand, goes back to his room and changes his clothes.

When he comes out, he finds Tobio on the couch. He's looking at nothing in particular, his eyes swimming in thought. He's only out of his reverie when the couch sinks a little with Shouyou landed close to him.

"Tobio."

Tobio looks at Shouyou, but only that.

"I love you."

Tobio blinks.

"I've loved you for quite some time now."

Tobio's eyelashes flutter.

Shouyou fast forwards through it all. He wants the time to slow down to the point of stopping, but it's those moments he wants to last forever which pass the quickest.

He lies on his back, pulling Tobio on top of him. There, they look in each other's eyes and Shouyou plants a kiss on Tobio's Adam's apple, unmoving for some time now, ever so softly. Tobio's skin is warm enough to burn Shouyou's lips, with crimson on his cheeks like a bride's veil.

They fill each other's time and space.

Sister Kageyama arrives on the third of April. Her two brothers are there to welcome her to the world, one running around for his mother's needs just like his father and the other babysitting her as her mother recovers, his eyes regularly browsing the room to find the other brother. The colours go dull and the room gets cold whenever Tobio leaves.

The duckling's named Tori, but not as much to go with Tobio as to emphasise her being a treasure just like her brother is. It's all the more cuteness points for Tobio when he's side by side with his sister and something to make him even less intimidating, not that Shouyou's intimidated anymore. He's fully integrated into Tobio's life. He ought to knock on wood just in case, but he dares to say that he's no longer a stranger.

He knows.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr?  
> [tumblr](https://octoberswimmer.tumblr.com).


End file.
